DAVY STILL FITZ’ DEISE
DAVY Fitzgerald’s Waterford homecoming shifts up a gear as they open their League defence at home to Dublin tomorrow.
Fitzgerald tends to divide opinion, but his results — All-Ireland and League (Clare) and Leinster title (Wexford) — speak for themselves.
The man who managed Waterford from June 2008 until the end of the 2011 season tends to go hard after the League as well.
An increasingly colourless League will certainly get a bump from Fitzgerald’s return to inter-county game after a oneear hiatus. Stephen Bennett labels his experiences to date in Fitzgerald’s second coming with Waterford as “brilliant — really good.”
The All Star forward continues: “He is so much different from what you see.
Person
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“Fellas think he comes in shouting and roaring like you see on the telly.
“He is really good, really calm.
“He talks to you really as a person and he cares about you.
“He’ll tell you if you were bad. We played a match the other day and he’d tell you that you were a three-out-of-10, or a two but it’s so honest people actually like it.
“Fellas are happy coming into training and they are trying to get to know each other outside of the field.
“He’s big on that or seems to be but it is very early yet.
“We have only a couple of matches played. We have done a lot of meetings.
“We are trying to see what way he wants to play — trying to go implement that now and try and have a good League again.”
Bennett gets no sense that Fitzgerald will be holding back in the League with one eye on the Championship.
He continued: “I don’t to be honest, the way he talks about playing cards and he says he goes mental if he loses them with his mother.
“So I don’t actually think he’s capable of not trying to win a game.
“The same with all of us. You’d hear fellas saying, ‘Ah they didn’t want to win that’ but I don’t ever believe it.
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“Like, fellas mightn’t be fit enough or they mightn’t have enough done but I don’t think any player goes out and plays a match at county level and doesn’t try and beat the man he’s on.
“To get to that level you need to be. Just personally, if I was playing a round of golf with my two brothers I’d be mental on the inside if I lost to them, or if I was playing a PlayStation game I’d get thick if I was losing it.”
Bennett’s father Pat — currently with Kerry — was a backroom team member with Fitzgerald in Waterford and Wexford.
“I think he’s (Fitzgerald) so much different from 10 years ago with Waterford to now.
“In fairness, he won an All-Ireland with Clare, a Leinster with Wexford. They clearly had massive time for him, that he lasted five years there.
“Wherever he goes he gives you a chance. He improves players. If he can just improve us a bit, that’s all we want.
“Not just him. Eoin Kelly, Peter Queally — if you’re not able to get something off the likes of them, there’s something wrong with you.
“Eoin was one of the best ever. Just looking forward to getting new ideas off them all.”